I have spent the last few days on a www.govtracks.com reading and researching current legislation that is at various stages of activity. A sample of some of my findings:
1. SAFE Internet Act:Introduced May 14, 2009
To make grants available to carry out an age-appropriate, research-based Internet safety education program and other activities relating to Internet safety.
2. Student Internet Safety Act of 2009: Passed House June 16, 2009 (Awaiting Senate)
To use $$ (Drug free $$, and other) to develop and implement programs promoting safe internet use by students.
3. Internet Freedom Act of 2009: Introduced Oct. 22, 2009
To prohibit the Federal Communications Commission from further regulating the Internet
4. Adolescent Web Awareness Requires Education Act: Introduced Sept. 23, 2009
5. Expressing Support for Designation of Jan. 28 as "National Data Privacy Day"
While I am reading and discovering possibilities of legal impact legislation could and will have in regards to information on the internet, I am pondering the structure, flow and design of my thesis. What technique should I adopt:
1. Content Analysis: analyze 2 or more of these Acts, in search of common themes that could be developed into a potential hypothesis for the impact they may have if passed as a bill.
2. Comparison Study: Compare and Contrast 2 or more of these Acts
3. Usability Analysis: ???
This is where I may need a little help. I am very interested in this topic and even more so now that I have been exposed to some legislation will potentially be dealing with Internet safety and privacy. Next steps and structure of my thesis are still a bit foggy and unclear at this point.
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Hey Amy nice progress.
ReplyDeleteContent analysis of several (10?) pieces of legislation is possible, if you are looking for themes. Doesn't matter if they are passed, of course, you are looking to understand the language that is being used. Of course, you'd need a sampling frame (all bills introduced within a time frame with the word "Internet" and "Safety" in their title, for example). This would allow you to study the language surrounding a bill. Interesting idea. Have others done it?
You could also take on the entire corups of internet legislation, in an attempt to understand the "state of the art" as of, say, 2010. that is, take all the legislation introduced in 2008-2009 (or some year) and categorize it (safety, ecommerce, fraud, porn, etc.) to get a sense of the "legislative agenda". howeve,r you would need to understand (i.e. research) what precisely "legislation" is; recognize that a bill is not a bill (even though you would count each one equally). a bill introduced by the chair of the committee matters; a bill introduced by a low seniority member of the minority is not seriously considered as legislation 9but is evidence of the agenda).
You could focus on internet safety, and summarize the legislative intent and direction of the bills, and suggest the overriding issues involved. first amendment concerns, etc.
The last one is probably closest to what you want to do.
Definately not comparison study or usability. You are talking about a legislative analysis, a kind of history.